Red Bulls Ready for Home Opener Against the Revolution

By Daniel Feuerstein | Thursday, February 26th | Harrison, NJ

Opening the Home Schedule at Sports Illustrated Stadium

After a fantastic performance at the Purple Palace on Church Street in Orlando, Red Bull New York is ready to start their home portion of the Schedule as they take on the New England Revolution on a Saturday Afternoon. Seeing this team coming out and putting on a brilliant performance against Orlando City, you saw a backline that has some strong young players, with a veteran leader in Dylan Nealis who showed he can be the voice to help out, but when Martin Dos Santos was pencilled in as a left full back, there were a lot of questions being asked before the match began, but were quickly answered linking up with Jorge Ruvalcaba on the left side.

“All three of those guys are really, really good players, good teammates, and, you know, hard workers. We’re all excited for Matty. You know, he earned that throughout the preseason. When I came, you know, he had a good preseason. He’s a hard worker. You know, he’s a humble kid. But, yeah, for me, I would just say, obviously, like, I’m 21 years old.

I played quite a decent amount of games, and I’ve been in this league. So I kind of just told him, you know, I was in your shoes once. I think I made my start, my first start, at like 17 or something, 16. Like man, like don’t be nervous. You know, we’re all here for you. You’re gonna make mistakes, but you know, just work hard. I think all the guys gave him confidence, including the coaching staff.

And yeah, he’s a great kid. You know, a lot of potential, like you’ve seen with all the other young kids. And I think that’s the thing—like, we kind of know each other. We’re young, but we don’t really look at each other like we’re young, you know. Like. We’re ready now, and we’re ready to take the next step as a whole, as a group. So everyone did their part to help him, but I think… You obviously can see the quality that he has.” Said Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty

Red Bull New York’s head coach, Michael Bradley, will make his third appearance at Sports Illustrated Stadium, but it will be his first with the first team, after leading Red Bull NY 2 to the MLS Next Pro playoffs with the Semi-Final against Philadelphia Union 2 and the Championship Final against the Colorado Rapids 2 at Sports Illustrated Stadium. Now he’s managing his first game at home with the senior side.

His first test at home will be the New England Revolution, as a perennial rival since the 1996 season. The Revs have been a major thorn in the side of the Red Bulls, and now with their new head coach, Marko Mitrovic, who has been the head coach of the U.S. Under 20’s, he will get the chance to face Bradley’s Red Bulls for the first time, after a poor season opener at Nashville SC, where they got blitzed very badly.

“It’s early in the season, very early, and so everybody is still trying to… figure themselves out, figure out exactly who they are, what they want to be, how they’re going to play, who needs to be on the field, all of the things that… go into that. And so, you know, especially a team with a new coach like New England, yeah, it’s all part of the process. And so, obviously, I would imagine that there is some disappointment in terms of the… result in the first match against Nashville. But it’s still a good team with a lot of very good players. Marko Mitrovic has proven himself to be a very good coach.

The job that he did with the U .S. under-20s. Over a bunch of years was very good, and so I would certainly expect them to come in here on Saturday and… Beep. Very prepared to play a good match. We’ve used the week in the best possible way. Obviously, we feel pretty good about the way that we were able to start things off in Orlando. But we were right back to work this week and trying to take the next steps and understand how we can take our idea of football, our package of ideas, and make it all even better,” said Head Coach Michael Bradley

The Revolution will have its two big guns on the offense, ready to go against the Red Bulls. Leo Campana and Carles Gil will be the most important players to keep in check and prevent them from making any attacking plays converting into goals. These two will be in the game plan from Bradley, and he knows what they are capable of when they have the ball.

“Campagna is a really good striker. He has good experience in the league. He is physically strong. He’s a guy who knows how to play. knows how to run in the box and get chances. And so he certainly is somebody that we will have to do a really good job on on the day. Obviously, the other big key to their team, and this is not new, is Carlos Gil and his ability to… float around and find spaces and with his football intelligence and with his left foot be able to really dictate things, and then really important plays in the attacking part of the field. So it’s really important for us that we do a good job on both of these guys, that is a for sure key part of the game,” said Bradley

Cameron Harper last season suffered a horrible injury that made him miss the rest of the 2025 season after the road match at Austin FC. After going through a long rehab process, Harper is finally back at training. While he’s not ready to partake in the matches or during training sessions, it’s fantastic to know he has returned to the facility, and he can start getting ready to work himself up to finally taking part in the training sessions and matches when his number is called, either as a starter or a substitute.

“Harper is making good progress. He’s back on the field. He’s, first of all, really excited to be back on the field. It’s been a long, hard rehab process for him. And whenever you have a player who… who has worked so hard, like he has, to now get himself back to this point, then the excitement when he starts to get himself moving, get himself… back in the group in little ways. When he starts to feel like a football player again, yeah, that part is exciting. So, you know, we’re going to continue to move him along in good but smart ways. And, you know, we’ll see. There’s no pressure or no set timeline on that because ultimately we want to move him along in a good way and make sure that he’s feeling good and at his best each step of the way,” said Bradley

It should be a good crowd for the home opener after what the fans saw from the last match. The hope for the Red Bulls is to add another win and move their record toward 2-0. While we all saw a lot of fabulous movements and relentless attacks, the fans are begging for more of what they saw. Performing for the home fans will be very important, and they know very well what they have to do to get the full three points. Enjoy the afternoon this weekend.

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